


The Last Rites of Alain Johns

by Lucy Gillam (cereta)



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-14
Updated: 2006-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereta/pseuds/Lucy%20Gillam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alain Johns had never believed the mumblety-buck people put around about the moments before death. (Spoilers through Book VII)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Rites of Alain Johns

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to elynross and LC for beta.
> 
> Written for puellanerdii

 

 

_Alain Johns had never believed the mumblety-buck people put around about the moments before death: time slowing, life flashing before your eyes, that kind of nonsense. He was pretty sure that these were comforts people made up to ignore the fact that those moments were probably mostly about pain._

And so, as he saw the muzzle flashes of Roland and Cuthbert's guns in the dark, and realized a second too late that they had not recognized him as he approached the camp, as the moment lengthened and slowed to molasses, Alain could only reflect that he had been wrong about other things, and wonder almost idly what he would see.

"Get sleep. We'll need to be ready before dawn."

The old gunslinger spoke absently, either because he trusted that the small band of gunslingers left to the Affiliation would of course make sure they were ready for battle the next day, or because he knew that the green young men surrounding the planning table would get no sleep that night. They filed out silently, exhaustion and nervous energy warring in their gaits.

"It's a good plan," Cuthbert said, though he was looking only at the road stretched before them, the road Alain would set out on in the morning with DeMullet's men, leaving his friends behind to wait for the final bit of information that would allow them to strike. Bert did this after every strategy session, sometimes going into great detail, sometimes just speaking the words as if they were a talisman. They had all learned to ignore it months ago, as affirmation was seldom required.

"It is," Roland agreed unexpectedly, and Alain found himself nodding along with Jaime. It _was_ a good plan, one that maximized their strengths, exploited the enemy's reliance on untrained farmers and merchants, and luck holding true, would account for Farson's vastly superior numbers.

It was useless to think that luck had not exactly been on their sides thus far.

"Sleep, then?" Jaime asked, his own yawn answering the question for himself.

"In a bit," Roland said absently. Cuthbert held up the smoke he was rolling in response.

For just a brief moment, Alain was tempted to make a similar excuse, to stay with them in feigned ignorance of their reasons for not retiring immediately. Or better yet, to tell them that he wasn't fooled, and Jaime might be blind (and deaf), but he was not; that they needn't sneak around, that even if the others might care (and they almost certainly wouldn't), he didn't. That he was their friend, and he loved them, even when they went off without him.

Instead, he clasped Jaime's shoulder. "Bed."

There was enough waiting for them on the morn.

_Cuthbert's bullet, aimed true, ripped through Alain's right lung, stealing his breath forever._

"He's going to have to figure this out for himself, Bert."

He and Cuthbert were standing outside the bunkhouse in Mejis, Bert's normally cheerful mouth twisted in a grimace that was somewhere between anger and tears. It was the fourth night that Roland had not returned before sunset, and there was little question of where he was. Alain and Cuthbert were both on growing edge, not just from their friend's madness, but from the increasing certainty that they were in far, far over their heads, that the minor errand set them to get them out of harm's way for a spell was turning to something they were nowhere near old enough to handle.

"He's a gunslinger. He's leading us -- or he's supposed to be, anyway." Bert dropped gracelessly to the ground, tearing a handful of grass from the dirt and throwing it back down.

Alain didn't answer. A reminder that Roland, in the end, was only fifteen, same as them, would probably not help matters. And even Alain was not quite ready to voice (or even think) the near-blasphemy that winning a skirmish against their teacher, however cleverly, didn't make a person wiser or invest him with greater moral strength or even make him better at self-preservation. Alain still believed that these things would come to him, too, when he earned his guns. Or he thought he did, anyway.

Alain wished again that their fathers had never sent them here. He couldn't bring himself to hate Susan Delgado, as Cuthbert said he did, nor to hate Roland for failing to be what they wanted, what they needed him to be. He could almost bring himself to hate Cuthbert, for still staring in the direction Roland would come, as he had stared the last four nights, but the thought of hating Bert hurt too much.

He _was_ perilously close to hating Steven Deschain.

Alain pulled out the paper to roll a smoke. There would be little sleep tonight.

_Roland's bullet, as accurate as ever he was, tore into Alain's throat, finishing the process of knocking him from his horse and silencing anything he might have said, any words of forgiveness he might have spoken._

"My father is sending me away."

It was well after the break of dawn that Roland, a few marks on his face that Alain was fair certain had not been there yesterday, found them in the bunks. He looked tired and agitated at once, worn from a night of little sleep and restless with the energy of victory and what almost looked like fear, or as close to it as Roland ever seemed to get. Alain imagined he and Bert looked much the same. He had spent the better part of the night listening to Cuthbert recite Roland's triumph, reliving and dissecting it, his dreams of his own challenge clear in every word. Alain withheld his cautions, knowing that they would be wasted, and trusting that Bert would not do anything rash that very night.

Now, listening to Roland, it seemed his advice would be unnecessary for a while yet.

"Say again?" he asked.

"My father is sending me away," Roland repeated, his face carefully neutral.

"He's _punishing_ you?" Cuthbert demanded, outrage clear in every line of his body. "The old bastard! You _won_! You beat Cort, younger than even he did! How can he--"

"'Tis not a punishment," Roland interrupted mildly. "Just time away, to see the world outside."

"But it will seem a punishment, to everyone!"

"And if it does?" Roland asked.

"It will reflect worse on his father than on him," Alain put in, eyes carefully on the rough wooden table between them. "It will seem he is angry, jealous, even." He looked up to see Roland barely suppressing a grimace, and knew the thought had occurred to his friend, as well. And that it hurt worse than any shame that might come of being sent away.

Roland shook his head as if to clear it. "He has said I should bring friends with me, both of you. Would you come? I know I ask you to interrupt your own training..."

"Piss on that," Bert said. "As if we would not learn more out in the world with you than here, waiting for Cort to be pieced together from the shreds you left. But tell me plain, Roland: your father never did suggest _me_ for your trusted companion."

A slow smile spread across Roland's face, a match to the grin on Cuthbert's, and one of those moments Alain had so often seen passed between them, the moments that reminded him that even as they were three, even as he was theirs and they were his, and had been before Jaime deCurry joined to make four, Roland and Cuthbert had first been two, and always would be. He told himself this didn't hurt.

"Your name was mentioned," Roland said, and turned to Alain. "What say you? Will you come?"

A sudden chill ran down Alain's spine, and for one brief moment, he thought of refusing. He did not worry about any whispers that might follow behind about their departure, or his own progress as a gunslinger, or even the prospect of being alone out in the world at fourteen. _This will not end well_ , was all he could think to say. And if Bert, who believed in Alain's Sight even more than Alain did, might take that to heart, Roland would only shrug and point out that he, at least, had little choice in the matter.

"Of course," he said instead.

_Alain fell to the dirt, his flash-blinded eyes seeing only Roland and Cuthbert's boots as they ran to him. Summoning one last burst of will, he managed to retrieve DeMullet's last message from his pocket, holding it in his open palm as he left them behind, two again, as they had begun._

 


End file.
